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Post by Moni on Nov 27, 2017 16:00:36 GMT -5
Well, I mean, even feedback like "lol Moni, you're dumb, I don't think adding a talkback thread will increase participation at all because no one's interested" is still valuable... somewhat, I mean. But moreover, I think forums are just *official affairs* that people don't want to come in here and say "I agree!" and just leave, but then I don't know what their actual opinion is. Haha, no Huntress, you are perfectly fine! :-) Your input is great! More leniency is a good idea but I have to think about it a little. >> And, well, posting *more* or producing an increase is really all I want; I understand that people have lives and in your case, a cute little baby! so I'm not going to be a jerk about rules even if I end up going with any sort of moratorium. Yeah, it seems that a lot of people like the idea of a talkback thread or would like it anyway, so I can probably create it in the Times Lobby soonish. Well, I mean, the search feature is at least better than the NT proper's search feature--that is, it'll search titles AND descriptions for you. I've always found it pretty useful in that respect--my reading for the NT has always been about specific places that I was into at the time. Hashtags would be a good idea, yes. x) Blueysicle Hmm, yes, you may be right about that. See, you don't have to ask permission to be blunt or anything--in fact, I welcome being blunt--if you'd come in earlier I would have definitely toned it down. My intention with these "notes" was to be more humorous but it's always good to have other people knock perspective into you. Which... lol, is the reason I ask for feedback in the first place, so it's a bit circular if I'm discouraging people. x) Hmm... so you really like the list thing on the review threads, I think, is what you're getting at, is that the list helps people decide who to review based on who will read it, which is a valid point. I think in older review threads they didn't used to have the list and we ourselves have experimented with getting rid of it--it didn't really work. Do you think that if we decide to collapse all the review threads, having an updated comment every week in the talkback thread would do the same thing? Or is it something about the newness of a new thread?
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Post by downrightdude on Nov 27, 2017 17:40:56 GMT -5
I think it'd be great if the NT authors can talk about their projects in more in-depth analyses--if readers are interested. And they can ask questions and the authors can respond, ya know?
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Post by Moni on Nov 27, 2017 21:02:59 GMT -5
downrightdude I think that might be covered if we're not so strict with the talkback thread and allow authors to post their own stuff and be like "look at me!" I will probably hold that idea in my head and think on it, though, if there's any better way. x) It's an interesting idea and if you had something else in mind or think the talkback thread inclusion isn't enough, do share!
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Post by PFA on Nov 27, 2017 22:37:59 GMT -5
I sortof wonder if most people feel like they're not really in the position to comment on NT reviewing business; either because they've long since stopped playing the site or because they haven't done reviews in half a forever and thus don't feel justified pitching in. I, of course, haven't done reviews in more than half a forever, I'm just one of those people who sticks her nose in everything :] As a lurker, can confirm lol. I barely play Neo these days, much less read the NT, so I'm not sure my opinion counts for much. I just happen to be nosy too >_> <_< But uh doing discussion threads instead of strictly reviews sounds like a good idea *thumbs up*
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Post by Gelquie on Nov 27, 2017 22:48:09 GMT -5
Yeah, I haven't been posting because I generally agree with what most people are saying about the idea, which is that it sounds good to me. In cases like these I generally leave a like on posts I generally or at least mostly agree with to show "yes I favor this" without me cluttering the thread with me basically saying the same thing. xD (That, and I don't really play Neopets anymore or do any NT stuff, so I don't really have a horse in this race, so I feel my opinion doesn't mean too much.)
Butyes, I generally approve of this and happily approve of anything that revives discussion here. I could see the talkback thread being a chatter thread for NT stories in general (with the initial stuff getting their own discussion thread), but I think a chatter thread could help give this board the momentum it needs. And people can still leave reviews if they want, but this idea can give more room for people who just want to shoot off a few remarks and not have to do an Entire Review each time they wanna talk about a work. So yes, thumbs up to all this.
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Post by Huntress on Nov 28, 2017 5:58:39 GMT -5
Honestly I think that a quantity of opinions, no matter how repetitive, is important here, considering that we have multiple options on the table (I'm still not sure how many people are in favor of doing away with review threads vs running them in parallel with the talkback thread? I'm still leaning towards the former.) and just how weighty the decision is. NT reviews are the central point of this entire forum and if the input is limited to a handful of people, odds are good that nobody's going to be comfortable forging ahead with actual changes. Can't force anyone to pitch in, of course, especially in the light of just how much of the userbase has moved on from Neopets and the NT, but we're at the point where essentially nobody is no longer qualified to weigh in since pretty much everyone is equal in their inactivity of reviewing :'D
There was a time when I would actually have advocated mass-PMing every member of the forum with this question, we used to have a 'PM everyone' option precisely for these situations, buuut I'm pretty sure the new Proboards version did away with that option. That, and it just wouldn't be practical any more, since the vast majority of the userbase has moved beyond Neopets. But I brought my points to this thread instead of taking the more technical aspects to Mod Squad because I felt that this was one discussion that needed public input, instead of the mods debating it behind locked doors and then beaming down a change of the system whether you like it or not.
I've always had the impression that it would be perfectly okay for authors to discuss their works and bring more general chatter to review threads as they are right now. At least I've done that myself in the past and nobody complained xD But you know how it is, it takes several people to get a wave going in a crowd.
(seven, in fact, if you're curious; there's been research.)
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Post by Gelquie on Nov 29, 2017 22:58:22 GMT -5
One big reason I don't consider myself a major factor in the decisions is that I don't see myself getting back into the NT, hence these decisions really wouldn't affect me much. xD Beyond that, I can offer my opinions, I just try to keep my "me too"s to likes. (Though then there is some muddly grey-area room where the question "is this an agreement like or is it an 'I like this Post' like"; I've been heavily relying on context for this.)
But to answer the question of what to do with Talkback Thread vs Review threads, I don't think we should do away with review threads altogether. If the Reviews board happens to get active again, then the Talkback thread could get difficult to follow, and the Review thread would allow for same-week (or so) reactions to be read in the same place.
And I see the Talkback thread has been posted, which is *thumbs up.* Question: Do we want the thread stickied? That way there's no chance of it getting lost, which I think might be especially important now if the purpose is to revitalize activity in the board.
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Post by Moni on Nov 29, 2017 23:04:00 GMT -5
Gelquie Ah, yes, stickying it would be really ideal! I would appreciate it if a mod would sneakishly do so.
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Post by Twillie on Nov 29, 2017 23:42:59 GMT -5
Agreed that even if you haven't contributed much to reviews in recent past (which is everyone), it still helps to hear opinions, whether they be repeating favor or adding alternate ideas or bringing up concerns. It gives some more depth to the conversation at least, and perhaps even more commitment from each person to the issue and proposed changes. This was a common and often central issue with past review thread proposals: only a few people chimed in, so the final changes were implemented with some uncertainty, and they were geared just towards those few people. Thus, they were the only ones who used those changes, aka, nothing changed. Even if you don't plan on getting back involved in Neo or the NT, still doesn't hurt to hear opinions, as this is just as much an issue on how to better the forum as it is about the Neopian Times I'm not really leaning one way or another on getting rid of review threads, but with what's been said, sounds like a good course of action could be to keep them running alongside the talkback thread, and then seeing if anything should be done later based on results of that. Stickying talkback thread sounds like a good idea! Sooo went ahead and took care of that x3 With the NT Index, was the link removed because people weren't getting use out of it, or was it a victim of proboards updating, or some other mysterious fate? I think it has a bit more value than just statistics; checking entry counts per issue isn't the only reason I visit it so often, after all x3 It can be really valuable with recommendations, as it spans far more issues than the actual NT search bar, and it has so many more search options. Plus, it can just be fun to mindlessly browse with. I've often gotten into entries that I may never have otherwise by either finding them on the index, or clicking on an index link and browsing the rest of the issue once I'm there. True, it's not content based, but it's search abilities are a bit more versatile than they might let on. The title and description searches come to mind with that. I think it could still be a valuable tool at least. Especially given as we're likely not going to get a content focused index anytime soon, I think providing a link, even recommending it to people for browsing, would be better than not at all.
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Post by Gelquie on Nov 30, 2017 1:56:04 GMT -5
Fair point on giving more depth to the discussion. You're right in that it probably would revitalize more interest in the conversation that way, and that it can still be a forum issue at large. (Especially given the very name of the forum.) I still wonder about the line between adding and me-tooing and how much really contributes, but I'll save that for a different discussion in a different place as that's more a general social issue. I could see that as a D&D thread.
I think my main fear is that because of my uninvolvement with the NT, I don't wanna be seen as that one person who waltzes in on the outside without any context of the thing or why a thing may be a good idea and is generally out of touch and goes "EXCUSE ME I HAVE AN OPINION," as if my idea borne from lack of research is superior. But if this place really is super inactive, I guess it's a moot point. (Though I still don't know the state of the NT currently.) And in spite of what I said, sometimes an outsider's observations can be handy in general; I just don't wanna cross a line into the former.
As for the NT Index, I don't see any problem with re-instating the link, especially if it still gets some use. Unless it was eaten by an update monster. I dunno where it is, though, and I'm a bit too busy to look for it.
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Post by Huntress on Nov 30, 2017 6:27:22 GMT -5
With the NT Index, was the link removed because people weren't getting use out of it, or was it a victim of proboards updating, or some other mysterious fate? I think it has a bit more value than just statistics; checking entry counts per issue isn't the only reason I visit it so often, after all x3 I'd have to do a bit of digging to say for sure, but I'm pretty sure it just fell victim to code shenanigans. It was basically a pretty welcome box at the top of the forum with links to various useful places (besides the Index, there were also links to the NT itself, possibly Jellyneo and stuff like that, and then also quick links to important forum threads such as the rules, the reviews and the welcome boards). Problem was, it was in Flash and its code was strewn all over the forum's various code sources, where it'd sometimes clash with other bits of code added. Whenever we wanted to add something new and nifty such as dice or the badges, something would go 'splode and someone would have to tinker with the code to figure out what up. Since we don't have an IT department, this meant that tinkering was done by whoever happened to be adept at coding, which tended to bottleneck things, cut others out of the loop, leave behind unmarked bits of code and basically turned into a big ol' case of aghaghagh. I'd be very glad to see a nice collection of useful links at the top of the forum once more, but due to all of the above, the word 'coding' tends to give me a thousand-yard stare and I start spouting cautionary tales from times long gone >__> ...Although there might be an easy, less-shiny way of doing this via the global header, hnm. Re: the review threads, what I'm wondering is if it'd still be okay to take piddly commentary regarding more recent issues to the talkback thread, or if those should go in the Issue-Discussion-formerly-known-as-Review threads? By all accounts I could go either way, although in practice I'd feel a bit weird posting on a specific issue thread with a short comment about the editorial or a non-forumer's comic that stood out to me if that might be the only post on that thread >>; At the same time, looking at the more recent review threads, I quite like this shift towards more general if still issue-specific chatter, so maybe I just need to get over my hangups.
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